Hamsterball
Introduction Welcome to Hamsterball, the Rowdiest Rodent Racer of all time! Your job is to roll your Hamster from the race's start to the goal in the least amount of time! Long falls, dangerous enemies, and other hazards can cause your hamster to get dizzy, crack, or even go spinning off into space! There are two different game modes: The Tournament Game is a race against a countdown clock; while the Time Trial game is good for practicing, since you can never lose! In Hamsterball, you do not have lives. You can crack, smash, and all-around abuse your hamster as much as you want. Whenever you crash a hamster via a long fall or collision with an enemy, you will receive a new hamster, materializing somewhere nearby. Your only true obstacle in Hamsterball is time. Since crashing or cracking a hamster takes up time, the less you crash, the better you'll do. Controls Hamsterball can be controlled with the mouse, trackball, keyboard, or joystick. To play with the mouse, push your mouse in the direction you want the hamster to run. The more you move the mouse, the faster your hamster will run in that direction. You can adjust the sensitivity of the mouse in the options menu. You can right-click at any time to bring up the menu. When playing with the mouse, you won't have control of the mouse for normal windows operations during play. To play with the trackball, just roll the ball in the direction you want the hamster to run. This is the recommended way to play Hamsterball! To play with the keyboard, simply press an arrow key and the hamster will run in that direction. Pressing ESC at any time will bring up the menu. To play with the joystick, press the joystick pad or lever in the direction you want the hamster to run. Both digital and analog sticks are supported. Pressing a joystick button at any time will bring up the menu. Game Selection When you first start Hamsterball, you'll see a menu with "Let's Play!" as an option. Select "Let's Play!" and you will be presented with the Game Menu. The Game Menu will give you the choice of a Tournament game, Time Trial games, or the Mirror Tournament game. Note that the Mirror Tournament is not available until you win a tournament at a set difficulty. When you select a Tournament game, you will be asked to choose a difficulty. The Pipsqueak difficulty is great for beginners, but it won't unlock any of the races for Time Trial, and it won't unlock the Mirror Tournament if you manage to win the tournament. Normal and Frenzied are for progressively better players, and will do full unlocking. UNLOCKING RACES: When you start Hamsterball, only three Time Trial races are available, and the Mirror Tournament is not available. By playing Tournament games on Normal or Frenzied difficulty, you can unlock Time Trial races simply by reaching them in the tournament, and the Mirror Tournament by winning a tournament. Options You can access the options by selecting "Options" from the main menu. Resolution: The screen resolutions that are available for your video card. Higher resolutions will generally cause slower game play, and are recommended only for faster computers (those with 1Ghz or faster processors). Fullscreen: When fullscreen is selected, Hamsterball will resize itself to fill as much of your screen as your monitor and video card allow. If unchecked, it will appear in a window of the selected resolution. Color Quality: Hamsterball can be played in 16-bit or 32-bit color quality. 32-bit color offers a better display, but causes performance to drop on slower machines. Safe Mode: Some graphics cards that are not 100% DirectX compatible can still play Hamsterball if Safe Mode is enabled. If you experience graphical glitches, try turning Safe Mode on. Sound and Music Volume: Click and drag (or press left/right if you are navigating with the keyboard) the volume slider button to increase or decrease the sound and music volume in the game. Mouse Sensitivity: When playing with the mouse, you can adjust how much the hamster will move relative to the mouse. So your hamster will respond faster to High sensitivity than Low sensitivity. Save/Resume/Pause When you play a Tournament game, the game will be saved whenever you return to the tournament screen or exit to the main menu. And when you start a Tournament game later, it will ask you if you want to resume your saved game. The game will pause whenever the menu is displayed. To display the menu during game play, you can either right-click the mouse or trackball, press ESC on your keyboard, or press any button on your joystick. The game will resume when you select "RESUME" on the menu. Scoring Scoring only exists in Tournament games. During Time Trial games, no score is kept since the only objective is to beat the target time. You constantly score points while rolling. The faster you roll, the more you score. When you reach the goal, your remaining time is multipled by 100 and added to your score. Additionally, each tournament course has a "par" time associated with it. For beating the par time, you score 1000 points. There are also scoring modifiers that can be found in certain courses. When you score a bonus during a level, you will see the score hover over your hamsterball, indicating how many points you've scored. These include, but are not limited to: * 500 points for smashing a mini 8-ball. * 2000 points for knocking an enemy 8-ball out of the race. * 5000 points for making certain jumps. You also score 100,000 bonus points when you win the entire tournament. At that time, you are also awarded extra "survival" points. The fewer hamsterballs you smash or lose during the game, the more survival points you score. When you play a tournament at Pipsqueak difficulty, all scoring is cut in half. When you play a tournament at Frenzied difficulty, all scoring is doubled. Tips * Zig-zagging is a very important skill in Hamsterball. Practice switching your hamster's general direction at high speed as often as you can. This will become extremely useful in later levels! * The Weasel's Time can always be beaten. If it seems impossible, you may need to approach the race from a different perspective, such as jumping over a gap that you previously rolled around. * Most hazard areas of the game will restart you past the hazard if you're rolling fast enough. When facing a difficult hazard, try to pass at least half the hazard. That should be enough to restart you all the way past it if you get destroyed in the meanwhile. * Because all controls are enabled all the time, you can alternate using them. If prefer the keyboard, but find a spot that's too hard to pass, try using the mouse just for that spot. If you use the mouse, but have trouble climbing a steep hill, use the keyboard to ease you over the top. * In the Up Race, you can get a time bonus by landing on the big red button near the goal. It takes some practice, but is worth it. * Similarly, in the Expert Race, there is a bell at the end of the giant ski-jump ramp. When making this jump, try to move your hamster to ring the bell for a time bonus! * When going down steep hills, try to keep your hamster moving slowly by running backwards up the hill. Otherwise, you will build up too much momentum and lose control completely! Obstacles & Enemies Each course in Hamsterball presents you with unique obstacles and enemies. Some are helpful, most are harmful. Here's what you can look forward to as you go a rollin': Long Falls: Shatters your hamsterball. You'll restart safely somewhere nearby. Short Falls: Hamsterballs can survive short falls. But they'll make your hamster dizzy, and it'll be a little harder to control him for a few seconds. Pipes: Great for moving your hamster a long way vertically. When you see them, you can drop into them for a brief, safe trip further along the race. Bumpers: Whenever you touch one, it'll light up and send your hamster spinning off at high speed! Bumpers can send you spinning off a cliff, or can speed your progress through a course! 8-Balls: Your rolling competition. When you get near an 8-ball, it will zoom at you and attempt to knock your hamsterball away! Drawbridges: Lifting up and down, they require careful timing to cross! Spinnies: They twirl around, making it difficult to control your hamsterball. These are best avoided, or approached at high speed. Tarbabies: Tarbabies are to be avoided at all costs! Though they will not kill you, they stop you in your tracks, and then smear sticky tar on your hamsterball that will slow you down for a few seconds, even as you roll away! Catapults: Can toss you over gaps and other obstacles that cannot be crossed. Mashing Maces: Don't get under these! Although you can touch them, when they come smashing down they can smash a nearby hamsterball to smithereens! Vacuums: Like pipes in reverse. Get underneath vacuums in order to be sucked up past cliffs that you couldn't otherwise climb. Speed Cylinders: Touching one will turn it on, spinning your hamster at up to 20,000 rpm! After a few seconds, your hamster will blast off at a high rate of speed, allowing you to climb hills or navigate obstacles. Bonk the Hammer: Chases you, attempting to squash you flat. The only solution is to zig-zag, fast! Fanstorms: Attempt to blow you off course with their mighty winds! When caught in a fanstorm, roll TOWARD the fan! Buzzblades: They will not only destroy your hamsterball on touch, they'll actually cut away pieces of the course! When near these guys, you have to think fast, because the ground might be falling out from under you! Oddballs: These little silver balls pop out of errant pipes and roll away. They are not really a threat, except that navigating through dozens of rolling balls can be a bit difficult! Toobs: Like pipes, only transparent. Send your hamster into a toob for a twisty, crazy, rolling ride. Sawguys: Not as threatening as the Buzzblades. Touching a Sawguy only makes you dizzy, and that's only if you touch their teeth. BlockDawgs: These irritating blockheads never show their faces! They just hunch underneath their little steel contraptions, waddling around, waiting to drop down right in front of you to block off your path! Wobbly Platforms: Some platforms aren't secured very well, and the weight of the hamsterball on them causes them to tip. Respond quickly to compensate! Mr. Beam: This gigantic magnifying glass tries to focus sunlight on your hamsterball to get it hot enough to explode! Avoid him by zigzagging as fast as you can before your ball gets too hot! Starball: This ball really knows what it's doing, and it'll race you to the finish, getting in your way every time! Game Modes TOURNAMENT: The Tournament game is the basic Hamsterball game, and is the way you unlock Time Trial races and the Mirror Tournament. In Tournament games, you have a pool of time. You must roll your hamster through each course while you still have time in your pool. The time pool will count down constantly during a race. After winning a course, the countdown will stop, and any time remaining in your time pool can be used in the next race. You can keep track of your progress on the tournament screen where you can see what race you're on, a brief description of the race, and info on how much time you have left. At any time, you can roll back a race to correct mistakes or try for a better time. However, rolling back a race will disqualify you from posting a high score when you win the tournament. You will lose the game if your time pool counts down to zero. After losing the game, you still have the option to roll back a race and possibly do better on a second try. TIME TRIALS: In Time Trial games, you may choose which race you want to challenge. Races here are locked until you reach them in a Normal or Frenzied Tournament game. The goal in a Time Trial race is to beat the Target Time, which will net you a bronze, silver or gold medal. Your medals will be displayed on the Time Trial race selection menu, next to the race name. You can also race to beat the Weasel's Time. The Weasel's Time is the time it takes to win the race using every sneaky trick in the book: cutting corners, slipping past obstacles. Beating the Weasel's Time gets you the coveted Golden Weasel commemorative figurine. When you replay a Time Trial race, a ghost image of your previous play will appear right on the course. This way, you can race yourself to the finish! But note, the ghost image will only appear when you play the same course two or more times in a row. Switching courses will cause the ghost to reset. MIRROR TOURNAMENT: When you've beaten a Tournament game on Normal or Frenzied difficulty, you unlock the Mirror Tournament. The Mirror Tournament is the tournament as seen through a mirror, reversing the left and right sides of the screen. This unique challenge will test your true Hamsterball skills, as every obstacle, ramp, and pipe is reversed! Credits Hamsterball was created at Raptisoft, LLC: Game Design......: John Raptis Programming......: Nick Raptis Level Design.....: John Raptis Gary Clair Physics..........: Paul Nettle Music............: Skaven Creature Design..: John Raptis Gary Clair Level Models.....: Steve Warner Rodent Models....: John Hsia Play Balancing...: Brady Wright Game Installer...: Brian Fiete With additional contribution from GameHouse, Inc.: Producer.........: Garrett Link Art..............: Rodney Bambao Quality Assurance: Teagen Densmore Brandon Godfrey Chuck Little Kazunori Sasakura Jason Katsanis